Biomechanics of osteo-synthetics

Abstract

Osteo-synthetics play critical roles in skeletal tissue regeneration by supporting mechanical integrity as well as enhancing cell-tissue interaction to facilitate tissue formation. These roles can be fulfilled by the functional design of porous architectures to provide proper load bearing and mass transportation for the neo tissue formation. These require a simultaneous design for mechanical and mass transport properties. In this chapter, trends for introducing osteo-synthetics in the clinical setting, design parameters for capable implants, and influence of implant physical characteristics on osteointegration are extensively reviewed, followed by introduction of a novel numerical approach to integrate all these factors. We applied a homogenization-based topology optimization scheme to design the three-dimensional unit microstructures for the desired scaffolds. The target effective bulk modulus and isotropic diffusivity are obtained by the optimized porous microstructure. Cross-property bounds between the desired bulk moduli and diffusivities are adapted to determine the defined targets for a given porosity.